Acelen Secures $1.5 Billion for Brazil SAF Biorefinery Targeting 1 Billion Litres Annual Production by 2029

Acelen Renewables has secured $1.5 billion in financing to begin construction of a renewable fuel biorefinery in São Francisco do Conde, Bahia, marking one of Latin America's largest sustainable aviation fuel projects and positioning Brazil as a major global supplier of low-carbon aviation and heavy transport fuels. The financing was arranged by a consortium led by HSBC and the International Finance Corporation and includes ten national and international financial institutions covering First Abu Dhabi Bank, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, IDB Invest, BNDES, AIIB, Development Finance Institute Canada, KfW IPEX-Bank, Bradesco, BBVA and Bank of China. The biorefinery is scheduled to begin operations in 2029 with annual capacity to produce 1 billion litres of SAF and renewable diesel using hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids technology, with approximately 90 percent of commercialisation structured and signed.

 

Project Scale and Total Investment

 

The $1.5 billion financing represents the first stage of an integrated investment programme that will total more than $3 billion across the full development. The broader investment encompasses agro-industrial development covering the planting, extraction and processing of macauba byproducts alongside the core biorefinery infrastructure. The IFC, a World Bank Group institution focused on private sector development, acted as general coordinator and lead arranger alongside HSBC, ensuring the financial structuring followed extensive technical, environmental and social due diligence.

The financial close validates the project's technical and commercial maturity, which has already completed integrated engineering, negotiated strategic contracts and secured offtake agreements. Commercial partners include Trafigura, Moeve, Bunge and BGN, providing the demand visibility needed to underpin the project's financial structure. Technology and construction partners include Honeywell UOP, Alfa Laval and Construcap, combining world-leading HEFA processing expertise with established construction capability in Brazil.

 

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Innovative Feedstock Strategy and Land Use

 

Acelen's feedstock strategy combines traditional raw materials including soybean oil and used cooking oil with macauba, a native Brazilian non-food oilseed with high potential for advanced biofuels production. The project plans cultivation of macauba across 144,000 hectares in degraded areas, with 20 percent of land set aside for partnerships with family farmers and small producers. Growing exclusively on degraded land rather than converting productive agricultural or natural areas directly addresses the food versus fuel and land use change concerns that have historically constrained the expansion of first-generation biofuel feedstocks.

The integration of macauba into the feedstock mix is strategically significant because it represents a next-generation oilseed crop that can deliver significantly lower lifecycle carbon intensity than conventional SAF feedstocks. Acelen signed a partnership with Finboot in March 2026 to develop digital traceability infrastructure for the biofuel supply chain, deploying a blockchain-based platform to monitor the full lifecycle of production including feedstock origin, farm-level output, emissions and sustainability compliance. This traceability capability will be essential for demonstrating compliance with the sustainability criteria required by SAF buyers in regulated markets such as the European Union and the United States.

 

Brazil's SAF Policy Framework

 

Brazil's Fuel of the Future Law enacted in October 2024 requires airlines operating domestic flights to reduce emissions by 1 percent through SAF use starting in 2027, with a blending mandate that will gradually increase to 10 percent by 2037. This domestic demand signal provides a baseline of Brazilian offtake that complements the export-oriented strategy targeting the United States and European markets. Brazil's National Agency for Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels is expected to publish regulations for SAF production and marketing in the second half of 2026, providing the regulatory clarity needed to underpin long-term commercial agreements.

The combination of a growing domestic mandate and international export ambition creates a diversified commercial foundation for the Acelen biorefinery, reducing dependence on any single regulatory market. The United States and Europe are both experiencing rapid growth in corporate and regulatory SAF demand, with the EU's ReFuelEU Aviation framework imposing increasing SAF blending requirements and United States federal incentives supporting production and procurement. Acelen's positioning as a large-scale, low-cost SAF producer leveraging Brazil's unique agricultural and industrial advantages gives it a competitive cost profile relative to European or North American producers.

 

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Investor and Lender Perspectives

 

Leonardo Yamamoto, Partner at Mubadala Capital, said Brazil has unique conditions to lead the global energy transition by combining agricultural scale, industrial excellence and one of the cleanest energy matrices in the world. He added that Mubadala Capital believes in Brazil's potential to develop renewable fuels on a large scale and sees the project as part of a new low-carbon industrial platform for the country. The involvement of Mubadala alongside a diverse coalition of multilateral, bilateral and commercial lenders reflects broad institutional confidence in both the project's technical viability and Brazil's strategic position in global SAF supply chains.

The geographic diversity of the lending consortium, spanning Abu Dhabi, Canada, Germany, China, Brazil and multilateral institutions, signals genuinely international appetite for exposure to Brazilian SAF development. This breadth of financial backing also provides the project with access to diverse expertise in sustainable finance standards, environmental and social governance and technology risk management. The IFC's role as lead coordinator in particular signals a high bar for environmental, social and governance due diligence that strengthens the project's credibility with sustainability-focused buyers and investors.

 

Outlook for Brazilian SAF and Renewable Fuel Leadership

 

The Acelen financing establishes Brazil as one of the most significant emerging hubs for global SAF production, leveraging natural agricultural advantages that are difficult for competing producers to replicate. If the biorefinery reaches its 1 billion litre annual production target by 2029, it will make a meaningful contribution to global SAF supply at a time when demand is expected to significantly outpace available production capacity. The combination of macauba cultivation, used cooking oil processing and conventional oilseed feedstocks provides operational flexibility to optimise the feedstock mix based on pricing, availability and sustainability credentials.

Whether Acelen can deliver the biorefinery on schedule and within budget will depend on construction execution across a complex integrated supply chain, agricultural development of the macauba cultivation programme and continued progress on the remaining commercialisation agreements. Sustained execution would establish Acelen as one of the leading SAF producers globally and reinforce Brazil's position as a cornerstone of the emerging low-carbon aviation fuel supply chain. The project's success could also catalyse further investment in Brazilian renewable fuel production, accelerating the country's transition from a fossil fuel exporter to a leader in advanced biofuels.

 

Source: S&P Global